River Thames, ancient Tamesis or Tamesa, also called (in Oxford, England) River Isis, chief river of southern England. Rising in the Cotswold Hills, its basin covers an area of approximately 5,500 square miles (14,250 square km). The traditional source at Thames Head, which is dry for much of the year, is marked by a stone in a field 356 feet (108.5 metres) above sea level and 3 miles (5 km) southwest of the town of Cirencester. Some think a tributary, the River Churn, has a better claim to being the source; it rises near the village of Seven Springs (700 feet [213 metres] above sea level), just south of Cheltenham.

Lambeth from the northwest, London, showing the River Thames with Westminster Bridge (centre), …

East End of London along the River Thames (c. 1900), detail of a map in the 10th edition of …

Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc.

Physical features

The Thames is some 205 miles (330 km) long, running 140 miles (226 km) from the source to the tidal waters limit—i.e., from Thames Head to Teddington Lock—and, as an estuary, a further 65 miles (104 km) from there to The Nore sandbank, which marks the transition from estuary to open sea. Its basin, which receives an annual average precipitation of 27 inches (688 mm), has a complex structure. In its upper course the river drains a broadly triangular area defined by the chalk escarpment of the Chiltern Hills and the Berkshire Downs to the east and south, the Cotswolds to the west, and the Northamptonshire uplands to the north. At Goring Gap it cuts through the chalk escarpment and then drains the land lying north of the dip slope of the North Downs. Its last great tributary, the River Medway, drains much of the low-lying Weald area of Kent and Sussex to the south of London.

Flowing through gently rolling lowlands, the distinctive character of the Thames is pastoral and undramatic. Its average fall between Lechlade and London is less than 20 inches per mile (32 cm per km). The tides and surges of the sea, moreover, have a profound effect on the water level of the river’s lower course. This tidal influence begins to be felt intermittently, for some three hours during a high tide, at Teddington in the west suburbs of London. The transition from freshwater to estuarine reaches occurs closer to central London, around Battersea. At London Bridge, in the heart of the metropolis, the river rises 22 feet (7 metres) on the spring tides and 18 feet (5.5 metres) on the neap tides.

The Tower of London and the River Thames. The earliest part of the fortification, the White Tower …

Dennis Marsico/Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc.

The average flow at the upper limit of the tideway, at Teddington, is 1,856 cubic feet (53 cubic metres) per second, rising to 4,640 cubic feet (130 cubic metres) per second after winter rain. In extreme floods (e.g., March 1947) the discharge at Teddington Weir may be as much as 20,900 cubic feet (590 cubic metres) per second. Reputedly, an average of 31,310 cubic feet (887 cubic metres) per second passed over it one day after heavy storms in 1894. The river in spate can upset tidal flows for some distance below Teddington, overpowering the incoming tide and causing the stream to run seaward continuously for days on end. Conversely, high spring tides can overtop the weir and affect the river flow as far as 2 miles (3.2 km) upstream of Teddington. The catastrophic potential of tidal surges for London’s undergroundinfrastructure, buildings, and population prompted the construction of the Thames Barrier at Silvertown (completed 1982) and extensive complementary flood defenses along the entire tideway.

The Thames Barrier consists of 10 movable gates separated by 9 piers. Each gate has a curved face …

The Thames is navigable by small boat up to the town bridge of Cricklade, close to the source, though motor cruisers and barges must turn at Lechlade, 10 miles (16 km) downstream. Meandering gently through lowlands for the first 28 miles (45 km) between Cricklade and Oxford, the river passes Kelmscott Manor—the gabled stone home of the 19th-century designer, socialist, and poet William Morris, who is buried in the village churchyard. Before reaching Oxford, the Thames (or Isis, its literary epithet) swings in a northward loop around the wooded hills of Wytham and Cumnor, which overlook the city from the west. A side stream at Wolvercote leads to the mill where fine paper was made for Oxford University Press from the early 17th century to 1943. Braided into many backwaters around the gravelly site of the celebrated university town, the river in summer is alive with elegant flat-bottomed punts, rowing eights, and skiffs. Decorated narrowboats (canal barges) may also be seen making their way to or from the West Midlands and the north of England via the Oxford Canal.

The Thames at Oxford is 150 feet (46 metres) wide. Reinforced by three tributaries from the north—the Rivers Windrush, Evenlode, and Cherwell—it swings southward past the woods of Nuneham to the market town of Abingdon. There it collects the River Ock, which drains the Vale of White Horse. The Thames then trends east and south by the ancient towns of Dorchester (with its 14th-century abbey) and Wallingford. Passing between the Chiltern Hills and the Berkshire Downs at Goring Gap, it is joined by the Great Western Railway (London to Penzance) in a beautiful valley with beech woods rising to either side. It emerges from the chalk escarpment at Pangbourne to collect the River Pang. There the banker and author Kenneth Grahame wrote about the joys of “messing about in boats” in the opening chapters of The Wind in the Willows.

Henley Royal Regatta on the River Thames at Henley-on-Thames, South Oxfordshire district, …

Britain on View (SI/BTA/ETB)

On the approaches to London, villas lining the riverbanks and the “gin palace” cruisers at private moorings make an ostentatious display of wealth. But the Thames is also a great popular playground, with thousands of acres of public parkland along its banks and intensive (and sometimes conflicting) use by sunbathers, swimmers, walkers, fishermen, rowers, canoeists, dinghy sailors, campers, and bird-watchers. Less visibly, the river thereabouts provides the metropolis with the greater part of its water supply. Some 63.6 million cubic feet (1.8 million cubic metres) are diverted per day between Windsor and Hampton on London’s western periphery and pumped to large storage reservoirs prior to treatment and distribution. The same water eventually rejoins the Thames by way of the giant sewage-treatment facilities at Mogden to the west of London and at Beckton and Crossness to the east.

At Teddington the river is 250 feet (76 metres) wide. The embanked tideway broadens steadily to 750 feet (229 metres) at London Bridge, 2,100 feet (640 metres) at Gravesend, and 5.5 miles (9 km) at The Nore. The tidal Thames is joined by the Brent at Brentford, the Wandle at Wandsworth, the Ravensbourne at Deptford, the Lea at Blackwall, the Darent just east of Erith, and its greatest tributary, the Medway, at Rochester.

The urban Thames was once best admired from the deck of one of its many scheduled passenger boats. It can now also be viewed to striking advantage from the Millennium Bridge (2000; retrofitted and reopened 2002), the only bridge across the Thames that is solely for pedestrians, and from the London Eye, a sort of enormous Ferris wheel. Other outstanding riverside landmarks on a boat voyage through London include Kew Gardens, the Tate Britain, the Houses of Parliament, the London Eye, the Tate Modern, St. Paul’s Cathedral, the Tower of London, Tower Bridge, Canary Wharf, the former Royal Naval College and the Millennium Dome at Greenwich, and the gleaming steel of the Thames Barrier, the last marking the transition to estuarine flatlands.

Millennium Bridge, with St. Paul’s Cathedral in the background, London.

London has exerted a dominant influence on the river for centuries. A statute of 1393 granted powers to its citizens to remove weirs from the Thames, and the lord mayor of London’s water bailiffs enforced rights of navigation thereafter. An act of Parliament in 1771 enabled Thames commissioners to build locks along the river upstream of Maidenhead, while the Corporation of London carried out similar improvements on the lower stretches of the river. By the beginning of the 19th century, a busy cargo traffic extended upstream to Lechlade, where a canal link (now defunct) connected through the Cotswolds to the River Severn by way of the two-mile-long Sapperton Tunnel, opened in 1789. The origins of the modern system of water control were in place, as were the river’s 48 navigation locks. The grandest, Teddington Lock (1811), is 650 feet (198 metres) long with three sets of gates and is capable of taking a tugboat and six barges at one time.

The Thames is crossed at a number of points, including 16 bridges in Greater London alone. Most are road and rail bridges, but some, such as the Golden Jubilee Bridges and the aforementioned Millennium Bridge accommodate pedestrians. There are also two foot tunnels, one at Greenwich and the other at Woolwich, and a number of road and rail tunnels. The Woolwich Ferry links Woolwich in the borough of Greenwich with North Woolwich in Newham.

Economic factors

As on other rivers and canals in Britain, commercial waterway traffic declined steadily during the 20th century to the point of near extinction after World War II. Less inevitable, perhaps, was the collapse of seagoing traffic on the Thames in London—in notable contrast to Rotterdam, Netherlands. From 1970 the Port of London Authority concentrated all its investment in modern cargo-handling technology at Tilbury, 20 miles (32 km) downstream of the metropolis. The unwelcoming but functional industrial landscape of the London riverfront and docks was rapidly transformed beginning in the 1980s, as wharves and processing plants gave way to apartment and office buildings, promenades, and parks. The river was biologically dead in the 1950s, but changing land use together with improved pollution control have brought dramatic improvements in the quality of the water and a renewed abundance of fish. See alsoLondon Docklands.

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The Thames River has been the main waterway of England since the time of the ancient Romans. Compared to the great rivers of the world, the Thames is neither long nor mighty. Its importance comes from the great civilization that arose on its banks.

Not for its length but for its location is the Thames one of the best-known rivers in the world. Although it is only 210 miles (338 kilometers) long, it is England’s chief waterway. The Thames begins at Seven Springs in the Cotswold Hills. From there it pursues a very winding course through the Chiltern Hills. At Oxford, the famous university town, it is met by its chief western tributary, the River Cherwell. This is the end of commercial navigation. From here the river flows through the English countryside, passing such well-known sites as Henley, where the annual regatta is held; the royal residence at Windsor Castle; the college town of Eton; Hampton, famous for its beautiful Hampton Court palace built during the reign of Henry VIII; and then on to London.